doubtless the indignation, the instinctive horror that you have felt.
There is, then, in the soul a power of raising indignation that is
foreign to all personal interests! There are, then, in us sentiments of
which we are not the end! There is an antipathy, an aversion, a horror,
that are not related to what injures us, but to acts whose remotest
influence cannot reach us, that we detest for the sole reason that we
judge them to be bad!
Yes, we judge them to be bad. A judgment is enveloped under the
sentiments that we have just mentioned. In fact, in the midst of the
indignation that transports you, let one tell you that all this generous
anger pertains to your particular organization, and that, after all, the
action that takes place is indifferent,--you revolt against such an
explanation, you exclaim that the action is bad in itself; you not only
express a sentiment, you pronounce a judgment. The next day after the
action, when the feelings that agitated your soul have been quieted, you
none the less still judge that the action was bad; you judge thus six
months after, you judge thus always and everywhere; and it is because
you judge that this action is in itself bad, that you bear this other
judgment, that it should not have been done.
This double judgment is at the foundation of sentiment; otherwise
sentiment would be without reason. If the action is not bad in itself,
if he who has done it was not obligated not to do it, the indignation
that we experience is only a physical emotion, an excitement of the
senses, of the imagination, of the heart,--a phenomenon destitute of
every moral character, like the trouble that visits us before some
frightful scene of nature. You cannot rationally feel indignation for
the author of an indifferent action. Every sentiment of disinterested
anger against the author of an action supposes in him who feels it, this
double conviction:--1st, That the action is in itself bad; 2d, That it
should not have been done.
This sentiment also supposes that the author of this action has himself
a consciousness of the evil that he has done, and of the obligation that
he has violated; for without this he would have acted like a brutal and
blind force, not like an intelligent and moral force, and we should have
felt towards him no more indignation than towards a rock that falls on
our head, towards a torrent that sweeps us away into an abyss.
Indignation equally supposes in him who is the object of it an other
character still, to wit, that he is free,--that he could do or not do
what he has done. It is evident that the agent must be free in order to
be responsible.
You desire that the murderer may be arrested and delivered up to
justice, you desire that he may be punished; when he has been arrested,
delivered up to justice, and punished, you are satisfied. What does that
mean? Is it a capricious movement of the imagination and heart? No. Calm
or indignant, at the moment of the crime or a long time after, without
any spirit of personal vengeance, since you are not the least interested
in this affair, you none the less declare that the murderer ought to be
punished. If, instead of receiving a punishment, the culpable man makes
his crime a stepping-stone to fortune, you still declare that, far from
deserving prosperity, he deserves to suffer in reparation of his fault;
you protest against lot, and appeal to a superior justice. This judgment
philosophers have called the judgment of merit and demerit. I suppose,
in the mind of man, the idea of a supreme law that attaches happiness to
virtue, unhappiness to crime. Omit the idea of this law, and the
judgment of merit and demerit is without foundation. Omit this judgment,
and indignation against prosperous crime and the neglect of virtue is an
unintelligible, even an impossible sentiment, and never, at the sight of
crime, would you think of demanding the chastisement of a criminal.
All the parts of the moral phenomenon are connected together; all are
equally certain parts,--destroy one, and you completely overturn the
whole phenomenon. The most common observation bears witness to all these
facts, and the least subtle logic easily discovers their connection. It
is necessary to renounce even sentiment, or it must be avowed that
sentiment covers a judgment, the judgment of the essential distinction
between good and evil, that this distinction involves an obligation,
that this obligation is applied to an intelligent and free agent; in
fine, it must be observed that the distinction between merit and
demerit, that corresponds to the distinction between good and evil,
contains the principle of the natural harmony between virtue and
happiness.
What have we done thus far? We have done as the physicist or chemist
does, who submits a composite body to analysis and reduces it to its
simple elements. The only difference here is that the phenomenon to
which our analysis is applied is in us, instead of being out of us.
Besides, the processes employed are exactly the same; there is in them
neither system nor hypothesis; there are only experience and the most
immediate induction.
In order to render experience more certain, we may vary it. Instead of
examining what takes place in us when we are spectators of bad or good
actions in another, let us interrogate our own consciousness when we are
doing well or ill. In this case, the different elements of the moral
phenomenon are still more striking, and their order appears more
distinctly.
Suppose that a dying friend has confided to me a more or less important
deposit, charging me to remit it after his death to a person whom he has
designated to me alone, and who himself knows not what has been done in
his favor. He who confided to me the deposit dies, and carries with him
his secret; he for whom the deposit has been made to me has no knowledge
of it; if, then, I wish to appropriate this deposit to myself, no one
will ever be able to suspect me. In this case what should I do? It is
difficult to imagine circumstances more favorable for crime. If I
consult only interest, I ought not to hesitate to return the deposit. If
I hesitate, in the system of interest, I am senseless, and I revolt
against the law of my nature. Doubt alone, in the impunity that is
assured me, would betray in me a principle different from interest.
But naturally I do not doubt, I believe with the most entire certainty,
that the deposit confided to me does not belong to me, that it has been
confided to me to be remitted to another, and that to this other it
belongs. Take away interest, and I should not even think of returning
this deposit,--it is interest alone that tempts me. It tempts me, it
does not bear me away without resistance. Hence the struggle between
interest and duty,--a struggle filled with troubles, opposite
resolutions, by turns taken and abandoned; it energetically attests the
presence of a principle of action different from interest and quite as
powerful.
Duty succumbs, interest triumphs over it. I retain the deposit that has
been confided to me, and apply it to my own wants, and to the wants of
my family; it makes me rich, and in appearance happy; but I internally
suffer with that bitter and secret suffering that is called
remorse.[217] The fact is certain; it has been a thousand times
described; all languages contain the word, and there is no one who, in
some degree, has not experienced the thing, that sharp gnawing at the
heart which is caused by every fault, great or small, as long as it has
not been expiated. This painful recollection follows me in the midst of
pleasures and prosperity. The applauses of the crowd are not able to
silence this inexorable witness. Only a long habit of sin and crime, an
accumulation of oft-repeated faults, can compass this sentiment, at once
avenging and expiatory. When it is stifled, every resource is lost, and
an end is made of the soul's life; as long as it endures, the sacred
fire is not wholly extinguished.
Remorse is a suffering of a particular character. In remorse I do not
suffer on account of such an impression made upon my senses, nor on
account of the thwarting of my natural passions, nor on account of the
injury done or threatened to my interest, nor by the disquietude of my
hopes and the agony of my fears: no, I suffer without any external
cause, yet I suffer in the most cruel manner. I suffer for the sole
reason that I have a consciousness of having committed a bad action
which I knew I was obligated not to commit, which I was able not to
commit, which leaves behind it a chastisement that I know to be
deserved. No exact analysis can take away from remorse, without
destroying it, a single one of these elements. Remorse contains the idea
of good and evil, of an obligatory law, of liberty, of merit and
demerit. All these ideas were already in the struggle between good and
evil; they reappear in remorse. In vain interest counselled me to
appropriate the deposit that had been confided to me; something said to
me, and still says to me, that to appropriate it is to do evil, is to
commit an injustice; I judged, and judge, thus, not such a day, but
always, not under such a circumstance, but under all circumstances. In
vain I say to myself that the person to whom I ought to remit this
deposit has no need of it, and that it is necessary to me; I judge that
a deposit must be respected without regard to persons, and the
obligation that is imposed on me appears inviolable and absolute. Having
taken upon myself this obligation, I believe by this fact alone that I
have the power to fulfil it: this is not all; I am directly conscious of
this power, I know with the most certain knowledge that I am able to
keep this deposit or to remit it to the lawful owner; and it is
precisely because I am conscious of this power that I judge that I have
deserved punishment for not having made the use of it for which it was
given me. It is, in fine, because I have a lively consciousness of all
that, that I experience this sentiment of indignation against myself,
this suffering of remorse which expresses in itself the moral phenomenon
entire.
According to the rules of the experimental method, let us take an
opposite course; let us suppose that, in spite of the suggestions of
interest, in spite of the pressing goad of misery, in order to be
faithful to pledged faith, I send the deposit to the person that had
been designated to me; instead of the painful scene that just now passed
in consciousness, there passes another quite as real, but very
different. I know that I have done well; I know that I have not obeyed a
chimera, an artificial and mendacious law, but a law true, universal,
obligatory upon all intelligent and free beings. I know that I have made
a good use of my liberty; I have of this liberty, by the very use that I
have made of it, a sentiment more distinct, more energetic, and, in some
sort, triumphant. Every opinion would accuse me in vain, I appeal from
it to a better justice, and this justice is already declared in me by
sentiments that press upon each other in my soul. I respect myself,
esteem myself, and believe that I have a right to the esteem of others;
I have the sentiment of my dignity; I feel for myself only sentiments of
affection opposed to that species of horror for myself with which I was
just now inspired. Instead of remorse, I feel an incomparable joy that
no one can deprive me of, that, were every thing else wanting to me,
would console and support me. This sentiment of pleasure is as
penetrating, as profound as was the remorse. It expresses the
satisfaction of all the generous principles of human nature, as remorse
represented their revolt. It testifies by the internal happiness that it
gives me to the sublime accord between happiness and virtue, whilst
remorse is the first link in that fatal chain, that chain of iron and
adamant, which, according to Plato,[218] binds pain to transgression,
trouble to passion, misery to faithlessness, vice, and crime.
Moral sentiment is the echo of all the moral judgments and entire moral
life. It is so striking that it has been regarded by a somewhat
superficial philosophy as sufficient to found entire ethics; and,
nevertheless, we have just seen that this admirable sentiment would not
exist without the different judgments that we have just enumerated; it
is their consequence, but not their principle; it supplies, but does not
constitute them; it does not take their place, but sums them up.
Now that we are in possession of all the elements of human morality, we
proceed to take these elements one by one, and submit them to a detailed
analysis.
That which is most apparent in the complex phenomenon that we are
studying is sentiment; but its foundation is judgment.
The judgment of good and evil is the principle of all that follows it;
but this judgment rests only on the constitution itself of human nature,
like the judgment of the true and the judgment of the beautiful. As well
as these two judgments,[219] that of the good is a simple, primitive,
indecomposable judgment.
Like them, again, it is not arbitrary. We cannot but fear this judgment
in presence of certain acts; and, in fearing it, we know that it does
not make good or evil, but declares it. The reality of moral
distinctions is revealed by this judgment, but it is independent of it,
as beauty is independent of the eye that perceives it, as universal and
necessary truths are independent of the reason that discovers them.[220]
Good and evil are real characters of human actions, although these
characters might not be seen with our eyes nor touched with our hands.
The moral qualities of an action are none the less real for not being
confounded with the material qualities of this action. This is the
reason why actions materially identical may be morally very different. A
homicide is always a homicide; nevertheless, it is often a crime, it is
also often a legitimate action, for example, when it is not done for the
sake of vengeance, nor for the sake of interest, in a strict case of
self-defence.
It is not the spilling of blood that makes the crime, it is the spilling
of innocent blood. Innocence and crime, good and evil, do not reside in
such or such an external circumstance determined one for all. Reason
recognizes them with certainty under the most different appearances, in
circumstances sometimes the same and sometimes dissimilar.
Good and evil almost always appear to us connected with particular
actions; but it is not on account of what is particular in them that
these actions are good or bad. So when I declare that the death of
Socrates is unjust, and that the devotion of Leonidas is admirable, it
is the unjust death of a wise man that I condemn, and the devotion of a
hero that I admire. It is not important whether this hero be called
Leonidas or d'Assas, whether the immolated sage be called Socrates or
Bailly.
The judgment of the good is at first applied to particular actions, and
it gives birth to general principles which in course serve us as rules
for judging all actions of the same kind. As after having judged that
such a particular phenomenon has such a particular cause, we elevate
ourselves to the general principle that every phenomenon has its
cause;[221] so we erect into a general rule the moral judgment that we
have borne in regard to a particular fact. Thus, at first we admire the
death of Leonidas, thence we elevate ourselves to the principle that it
is good to die for one's country. We already possess the principle in
its first application to Leonidas; otherwise, this particular
application would not have been legitimate, it would not have been even
possible; but we possess it implicitly; as soon as it is disengaged, it
appears to us under its universal and pure form, and we apply it to all
analogous cases.
Ethics have their axioms like other sciences; and these axioms are
rightly called in all languages moral truths.
It is good not to violate one's oath, and in this is also involved a
truth. In fact, an oath is founded in the truth of things,--its good is
only derived. Moral truths considered in themselves have no less
certainty than mathematical truths. The idea of a deposit being given, I
ask whether the idea of faithfully keeping it is not necessarily
attached to it, as to the idea of a triangle is attached the idea that
its three angles are equal to two right angles. You may withhold a
deposit; but, in withholding it, do not believe that you change the
nature of things, nor that you make it possible for a deposit ever to
become property. These two ideas exclude each other. You have only a
false semblance of property; and all the efforts of passion, all the
sophisms of interest will not reverse the essential differences. This is
the reason why moral truth is so troublesome,--it is because, like all
truth, it is what it is, and does not bend to any caprice. Always the
same and always present, in spite of all our efforts, it inexorably
condemns, with a voice always heard, but not always listened to, the
sensible and the culpable will which thinks to hinder it from being by
denying it, or rather by pretending to deny it.
Moral truths are distinguished from other truths by the singular
character that, as soon as we perceive them, they appear to us as the
rule of our conduct. If it is true that a deposit is made to be remitted
to its legitimate possessor, it is necessary to remit it to him. To the
necessity of believing is here added the necessity of practising.
The necessity of practising is obligation. Moral truths, in the eyes of
reason necessary, are to the will obligatory.
Moral obligation, like the moral truth that is its foundation, is
absolute. As necessary truths are not more or less necessary,[222] so
obligation is not more or less obligatory. There are degrees of
importance between different obligations; but there are no degrees in
the same obligation. We are not somewhat obligated, almost obligated; we
are either wholly obligated, or not at all.
If obligation is absolute, it is immutable and universal. For, if the
obligation of to-day were not the obligation of to-morrow, if what is
obligatory for me were not so for you, obligation would differ from
itself, would be relative and contingent.
This fact of absolute, immutable, universal obligation is so certain and
so manifest, in spite of all the efforts of the doctrine of interest to
obscure it, that one of the profoundest moralists of modern philosophy,
particularly struck with this fact, has regarded it as the principle of
the whole of ethics. By separating duty from interest which ruins it,
and from sentiment which enervates it, Kant restored to ethics their
true character. He elevated himself very high in the century of
Helvetius, in elevating himself to the holy law of duty; but he still
did not ascend high enough, he did not reach the reason itself of duty.
The good for Kant is what is obligatory. But logically, whence comes the
obligation of performing an action, if not from the intrinsic goodness
of this act? Is it not because that, in the order of reason, it is
absolutely impossible to regard a deposit as a property, that we cannot
appropriate it to ourselves without a crime? If one action must be
performed, and another action must not, it is because there is
apparently an essential difference between these two acts. To found the
good on obligation, instead of founding obligation on the good, is,
therefore, to take the effect for the cause, is to draw the principle
from the consequence.
If I ask an honest man who, in spite of the suggestions of misery, has
respected the deposit that was intrusted to him, why he respected it, he
will answer me,--because it was my duty. If I persist, and ask why it
was his duty, he will very rightly answer,--because it was just, because
it was good. That point having been reached, all answers are stopped;
but questions also are stopped. No one allows a duty to be imposed upon
him without rendering to himself a reason for it; but as soon as it is
recognized that this duty is imposed upon us because it is just, the
mind is satisfied; for it reaches a principle beyond which it has
nothing more to seek, justice being its own principle. First truths
carry with them their reason for being. Now, justice, the essential
distinction between good and evil in the relations of men among
themselves, is the primary truth of ethics.
Justice is not a consequence, since we cannot ascend to another more
elevated principle; and duty is not, rigorously speaking, a principle,
since it supposes a principle above it, that explains and authorizes it,
to wit, justice.
Moral truth no more becomes relative and subjective, to take for a
moment the language of Kant, in appearing to us obligatory, than truth
becomes relative and subjective in appearing to us necessary; for in the
very nature of truth and the good must be sought the reason of necessity
and obligation. But if we stop at obligation and necessity, as Kant did,
in ethics as well as in metaphysics, without knowing it, and even
against our intention, we destroy, or at least weaken truth and the
good.[223]
Obligation has its foundation in the necessary distinction between good
and evil; and is itself the foundation of liberty. If man has duties,
he must possess the faculty of fulfilling them, of resisting desire,
passion, and interest, in order to obey law. He ought to be free,
therefore he is free, or human nature is in contradiction with itself.
The direct certainty of obligation implies the corresponding certainty
of liberty.
This proof of liberty is doubtless good; but Kant is deceived in
supposing it the only legitimate proof. It is very strange that he
should have preferred the authority of reasoning to that of
consciousness, as if the former had no need of being confirmed by the
latter; as if, after all, my liberty ought not to be a fact for me.[224]
Empiricism must be greatly feared to distrust the testimony of
consciousness; and, after such a distrust, one must be very credulous to
have a boundless faith in reasoning. We do not believe in our liberty as
we believe in the movement of the earth. The profoundest persuasion that
we have of it comes from the continual experience that we carry with
ourselves.
Is it true that in presence of an act to be done I am able to will or
not to will to do it? In that lies the whole question of liberty.
Let us clearly distinguish between the power of doing and the power of
willing. The will has, without doubt, in its service and under its
empire, the most of our faculties; but that empire, which is real, is
very limited. I will to move my arm, and I am often able to do it,--in
that resides, as it were, the physical power of will; but I am not
always able to move my arm, if the muscles are paralyzed, if the
obstacle to be overcome is too strong, &c.; the execution does not
always depend on me; but what always depends on me is the resolution
itself. The external effects may be hindered, my resolution itself can
never be hindered. In its own domain, will is sovereign.
And I am conscious of this sovereign power of the will. I feel in
myself, before its determination, the force that can determine itself in
such a manner or in such another. At the same time that I will this or
that, I am equally conscious of the power to will the opposite; I am
conscious of being master of my resolution, of the ability to arrest it,
continue it, repress it. When the voluntary act ceases, the
consciousness of the power does not cease,--it remains with the power
itself, which is superior to all its manifestations. Liberty is
therefore the essential and always-subsisting attribute of will.[225]